Formatting negative numbers in brackets as a default

I'd like all my spreadsheets to display negative numbers with brackets. I know that this can be done by creating a custom format under Format Cells, however I've found that Windows 10 under SETTINGS/TIME & LANGUAGE/ADDITIONAL DATE TIME & REGION SETTINGS/CHANGE DATE TIME OR NUMBER FORMATS/ADDITIONAL SETTINGS/ there is a tab labelled "numbers" and we can select negative numbers to be displayed in brackets. This is perfect. However, even after restarting my computer, it still doesn't make any difference to Excel (if when starting a new document). Is there somewhere in Excel where I need to tell it to use the System settings?

Hi Tammy,

Welcome to the forum.

I haven't taken the plunge with Windows 10 yet, but I have found that to get Excel to properly give the brackets option, you have to ensure that you not only change the Number format, but ALSO THE CURRENCY. Set Currency up for brackets as well.

Try that - I'm sure it will work for you.

Regards,

David

I hope this helps, please let me know!

Regards,

David


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I don't think that will change my default in new worksheets, it's a way of creating a bracketed format for cells I select. I can do that using the custom format _(#,##0.00_);(#,##0.00);_("-"??_), which i found using google. But it seems to me that Windows has deliberately made a method for putting the brackets around negatives. It's just not being picked up by excel.

Thanks newdoverman, that works.
Thanks David too.

Hi David. Newdoverman gave me the default I was after, but I didn't realise there was another tab in the windows setting, which is what you were talking about. I changed that as you suggested and now the brackets show up as an option in excel, where they didn't before. That's a big help, so thank you!